


Pretending

by Diary



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Background Character Death, Bechdel Test Fail, Bottle Episode Fic, Canon Disabled Character, Character Study, Depression, Dissociation, Dominion War (Star Trek), Ferenginar, Non-Canonical Character Death, POV Male Character, POV Nog (Stark Trek), POV Nonhuman, Post-Season/Series 05 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 16:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11627517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: Slight AU. Set during the Dominion arc, a look at Nog visiting his mother's remembrance plaque. Complete.





	Pretending

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Star Trek: DS9.

The remains of females often aren’t sold on the Great Market, and if they have a sentimental family member who can afford it, a plaque recording their death will set up in a designed place of Remembrance. Unlike many species, however, burial has never been a Ferengi concept. If the remains aren’t sold, they’re vaporised.

Before vaporisation was discovered and patented- Nog hopes no non-Ferengi finds out this particular piece of Ferengi history.

Sitting against the small, golden plaque, he wonders if it’s presence makes things better or worse, easier or harder.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know everything important. There’s nothing to ask or say.”

If he’d told Jake about this, Jake might have insisted on coming. Even if he could convince Jake not to, Jake would likely know what he might say.

He does feel a little bad for not being completely honest, but Jake’s insistence on talking about feelings has gone from ridiculously easy to comply with to ever harder.

As a little boy, he loved to talk, and he had no reason to hide anything from someone who’d proven he wouldn’t go tell Uncle Quark or some other authority figure about confessed misdeeds, though, he might try to convince Nog to make things right. Now, though-

Now, though, there are too many things he needs to keep inside. Despite what Jake might think and truly believe, talking about them wouldn’t be good, and in some cases, would cause active harm.

Therefore, Jake simply thinks he’s visiting his grandmoogie.

Her name was Prinadora, and Nog knows when she was born and when and how she died. He knows how long her marriage contract to his father lasted and how it was broken. He knows the names of her parents and two brothers. He even knows the names of their wives and children.

He knows he should feel something. He knows, when he was younger, he did. Back then, he clung to his vague memories of her and missed her. He wondered what he had done so bad she couldn’t love him and wondered if she ever did. It had hurt _so badly_.

Even then, he supposes, there were certain things he knew he couldn’t talk to Jake about.

Jake knew his parents were divorced. He’d played it off as him having no interest in his mother. Ferengi children went wherever their father went, that was all.

A few times, he found Jake crying in some Jefferies tube with holographic pictures containing his mother. Sometimes, it was just her, and sometimes, it was of her and others.

The first time, he hadn’t known what to do, and so, he’d simply gone and announced to Captain Sisko, in the middle of the bridge, no less, ‘Jake’s crying over his dead moogie in Jefferies tube 2-B.’

After over two months, Jake finally forgave him, and the next time, over a year later, he’d crawled in beside Jake and said, ‘If you want me to be quiet, I will, or I’ll say whatever you want.’

He knows he should feel something. He should be sad or angry or in denial. There is a dull _another innocent was taken by the Dominion_ causing his leg to ache and further strengthening his resolve to help see them fall, but there’s no true anger or even offence at them taking the life of the person he owes his own life to.

There was a time he genuinely loved her, but- this isn’t how one should act and feel towards losing a loved one.

He doesn’t know whether his father knows. If his father does, he hasn’t said anything, and likewise, Nog isn’t going to, either.

If his father does, Leeta will be kind and understanding, Nog knows.

Even before he lost his leg, his father became engaged to and, eventually, married her, and Nog had found himself not caring. He hadn’t objected, and he hadn’t been happy or excited. It was simply a fact: His father was remarrying, and his choice was pretty, fun, and good at her job. She wasn’t Ferengi. Uncle Quark disapproved, and so, he needed to be careful not to let the subject come up when he was around his uncle.

Jake had made it clear he should be feeling more than this, and so, he’d talked about how it was odd, but he wanted his father to be happy.

He does want his father to be happy, and objectively, it was and still is a somewhat odd situation.

However, his father can look after his own happiness, and he doesn’t see the need to consider his father’s choices in-depth or otherwise involve himself.

“Do I share this in common with you? Do I get this from you? Did you ever care for my father? The man you left him for?”

Shifting against the plaque, he continues, “Were you good at pretending, or did my father simply see what he wanted to see?”

Briefly closing his eyes, he confesses, “I was getting so good at pretending. But then-” He touches his leg. “I lost my leg and got a new one. I didn’t handle it very well, but the truth is, I was more myself than I had been in a long time. I wasn’t pretending. I wasn’t being what others thought I should be. The child I once was, the happy, outgoing one who _cared_ so much. The one who grew a little and became committed to something greater than myself.”

“I’m getting better at pretending, again.”

He takes a breath. “If you were pretending, was stopping worth it? You didn’t have the excuse I did. You just stopped.”

There are times he thinks about leaving Starfleet (he’s not a Federation citizen, and so, it would be easier for him than most, even in this time of war), ending his friendship with Jake, and dealing with his family as much as he had to until they stopped.

“I suppose, if you were and did, that makes you braver than me. Plenty of people have called my father a coward. Were you one of them? But he’s not. He’s been shy and uncertain at times, he’s done the wrong things and the right thing in the wrong way, and for too long, _he_ pretended. But every time it’s truly mattered in life, he’s done what he’s needed to do.”

“He’s in love. He’s been in love for a long time. He refused to do anything about it for a good chunk of that time, and for some reason, she didn’t, either. He did, though.”

Sometimes, he thinks he might be in love, and sometimes, he knows he can’t be. It’d be much easier if- he doesn’t know. He just knows, if he is, being brave like his father would be one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

“Hew-mons have this saying about “losing your virginity”. It’s ridiculous. My friend, I have a best friend named Jake, he agrees. Of course, he has this equally ridiculous idea about sharing or giving it to someone. I don’t know what I’d call it, but I’m not a virgin. When he was first with a female in such a way, he told me. I’ve never told him about my first, and so far, only time.”

Scoffing, he says, “I thought the person was worthy. Special. Then, they died, and just like now, I don’t particularly feel anything. I saw them clearly, I- you might say I mourned the potential lost, and that was it. But if it matters, for that brief time, I was happy and scared and truly felt much like I used to be. I wasn’t pretending. I knew I didn’t love them, but I thought I could. That I might, in time. I let myself hope it was the same for them.”

The realisation sitting here and talking to air isn’t going to get him to feel whatever he should settles within him.

“If there’s life after death, I hope you’re happy.”

He doesn’t know if there is or isn’t, and when he was little, he was almost paralysed with the realisation people could be unhappy and subjected to terrible things after death without their living loved ones ever knowing.

Now, he- can’t muster up any of those feelings. Such thoughts are now met with emptiness.

Standing, he walks away.

Jake would have brought flowers or some other gift to leave, he knows. Jake would wrap around him. Jake might have gently touched the plaque as he once touched his own mother’s gravestone on Earth.

If there’s one thing Nog does feel clearly, it’s: Prinadora never did anything deserving of Jake feeling any sort of special, personal grief for her. A Ferengi transport ship was attacked by the Dominion, there were no survivors, and anger, grief, and sadness are owed to the loss of innocent lives. But that’s all she was: An innocent life lost in war. Her giving birth over two decades ago doesn’t entitle her to Jake’s quiet sympathy, grief, and most importantly, his possible tears.


End file.
